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Yo!

Let the countdown to mass craziness begin, baby. Here's all you need to know:

Yesterday, I dropped off some work to be included in my first, official, fine art show. I've been slow to adopt the title "Artist" and have come a long way from making greeting cards to what I do now. This show marks my foray into gallery shows, and I'm pretty excited about it.

The Show: Locally Harvested "small art - big beauty". Held within the Capstone Gallery at 4325 Nicollet Ave S. in Minneapolis, November 12 - December 28. Opening Party will be November 19, from 6 - 9 p.m.

The Works:

"Reincarnations No.1" & "Reincarnations No.2"

This is my right hand.

The very first piece, back when it was "NEW"
In November of 2008, I sold my first 8 x 10" Topography in Aqua piece. I was bolstered to create the larger, frame-able sized pieces based on the small and growing success of my new topography cards, and was just as surprised as anyone when these did well too.

More custom requests have been filing in, with miraculously workable timing. Do you all get together behind my back and sort yourselves out, or am I just this lucky to maintain a lovely, nearly constant stream of requests? Either way, I'll take it!

Here's a look at what I've been up to lately.

Auke Bay, near Juneau, Alaska

My post on basic packaging tips is up on the Handmade Minnesota team blog. I invite you to scoot over there, have a read, and please share a bit of your packaging and shipping acumen. Thanks!

What does 800 cards from Crafterall look like?

Something like this:

Sorted, counted, ready to package:

I finally got around to creating more fictional island pieces for the shop, after making (and selling) the first two back when there was still snow on the ground. As ever, I continue to be inspired by cutting actual locations for custom requests, and it's so fun to be able to do "whatever" with these imagined places. Each piece is, at its most diverse points, eight layers thick, and the pieces are available in three different sizes:

uffta (OOF-tah): interjection: Exclamation of Norwegian origin, popular in strongly Scandinavian settlements in the upper Midwest, used to express surprise, bewilderment, astonishment, pity, pain, and fatigue. Syn. yikes, oh boy, whoa nelly, hoo-wee, good gravy.

As an artist who's been chest deep in topographies for about two years now, I keep an eye open for other forms of artful topography or topography-like art. I've started a collection and I'm happy to share some of what I've found so far. Today's selections showcase the variety of substances in which artists have worked in some very tasty topographies, intentionally or implied.Paper and wood are children of the same source, more or less, as plant pulp, and so it's equally gratifying for me to find awesome pieces made of either material.